Christopher and Maggie Snow run Autumn Prairie Pumpkins out of their 1/14th of an acre backyard in Newton, Kansas. They started farming as a contrast to their jobs in cybersecurity and project management because they wanted to see the physical fruits of their labour. They are in their second year as seed farmers and have chosen to focus exclusively on Moschata squash.

In this episode, Christopher, Maggie and I talk about why they chose Moschata squash as the foundation of their seed business. (Of course we also discuss whether the say Moskata or Moshata). We explore how they engineer their urban space to withstand harsh climate challenges like hailstorms and severe heat waves. And we discuss how they have launched their online seed company.

In the deep dive, we focus on growing squash for seed. We get into how to keep a bunch of different squash varieties of the same species from crossing together which leads into discussing squash hand pollination then tagging and tracking hand pollinated fruits. We get into how to evaluate squash maturity and talk about how Christopher and Maggie extract seeds from their squash.

Enjoy the conversation!

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Episode links

Autumn Prairie Pumpkins website

Autumn Prairie Pumpkins on Instagram

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